Make straight the paths and vacuum out those Cheerios. Even add a piney air freshener if you’re among the smelling. You’ll likely be caravanning someplace or other this Advent, and you’ll be a lot less cranky if snow melt isn’t puddling on months’ worth of discarded books and jackets and fast food wrappers.

Make crayon snowflakes.

I mean, in general, this is a good season to purge the toys, and stuff in general, but while you’re at it, gather up all your crayon nubs and those awful, waxy crayons you compulsively pocket at restaurants (just me?) and melt them together to make big rainbow crayons your kids can give to friends. It’s baking, without having to fuss at how they’re not measuring carefully enough! It’s cleaning, but with a pretty result! We use this mold, which I bought last year for an unsuccessful experiment in compound butter, and the lowest setting our oven can manage.